What is Fashion Tech Pack Creation?

Tech Pack 101: What it is, how it works and how to make one.

Fashion tech packs allow all necessary layouts, numbers, and materials to be housed in one place, serving as the blueprint for factories to access product data and easy-to-read instructions containing when and how products are created. Backbone’s modern tech pack creation tools help reduce user error and prevent costly mistakes that lead to shipping delays and lost revenue.

In this article, we answer the following questions and explain how Backbone PLM helps fashion and apparel brands create better, faster tech packs.

• How do fashion tech packs impact my business?
• What are the benefits of fashion tech packs?
• Where do I start with fashion tech packs?
• What is included in a fashion tech pack?

Fashion Tech Pack Creation: Static vs Dynamic Data

Still building tech packs the old-fashioned way? Create them much easier and faster with Backbone PLM.

We’re all about increasing speed to market! When you ditch the spreadsheets and utilize the dynamic data integrated into your PLM tech pack creation process, your brand has the potential to bring new products from design to development 44% faster!

If your brand creates fashion tech packs in Illustrator or Excel, don’t panic! For the longest time, both Illustrator and Excel were the tried-and-true solutions for tech pack creation in the fashion and apparel industry.

These programs have always been dependable, feature-forward tools used to manage product design and development. However, creating PLM tech packs in these manual platforms limits your brand to operate using static data.

Fashion tech packs allow all necessary layouts, numbers, and materials to be housed in one place, serving as the blueprint for factories to access product data and easy-to-read instructions containing when and how products are created. Backbone’s modern tech pack creation tools help reduce user error and prevent costly mistakes that lead to shipping delays and lost revenue.

Whereas manual spreadsheets provide static data that remains the same after it is collected, Backbone PLM provides dynamic data that continually changes throughout the product development cycle. Unlike a traditional Excel document, Backbone’s visual approach provides dynamically connected data that’s relevant to each stage in the product development process, making it much easier to navigate the different sections of a tech pack and make edits when needed.

You may be asking yourself, “Why should I care?” Fair question — we’ll answer that for you in our blog, where we explain why dynamic data is better and how Backbone beats manual tech pack creation.

Fashion Tech Pack Creation Using Illustrator and Excel

Traditional fashion tech pack creation: Using Adobe Illustrator and Microsoft Excel files to make static tech packs.

In the fashion and apparel world, designers may spend hours conceptualizing product sketches and mood boards as part of their creative visualization. However, when the time comes to translate those visuals into physical samples, suppliers and manufacturers require more than a few creative briefs to usher new garments into production.

Transitioning your fashion tech pack into a functioning prototype is made possible with a good tech pack. Using a cloud-based PLM software like Backbone will make tech pack creation a lot faster and more efficient, but traditional tools like Adobe Illustrator or Microsoft Excel can also be used if your brand isn’t ready or doesn’t have a better system in place. There is nothing wrong with taking this approach when building tech packs; it might just require some additional lift from your team.

In our blog, we discuss the pros and cons of Illustrator and Excel, and provide a helpful breakdown of the manual tech pack creation process, including technical sketches, BOMs, graded specs, colorways, and more. As a bonus, you can even download some Adobe Illustrator and Excel templates we’ve created to help you get started!

Factory Communication and Sharing Fashion Tech Packs

When it comes to communicating with apparel factories, your brand needs to share flexible tech packs to maintain a precise production cycle.

In the fashion and apparel world, designers may spend hours conceptualizing product sketches and mood boards as part of their creative visualization. However, when the time comes to translate those visuals into physical samples, suppliers and manufacturers require more than a few creative briefs to usher new garments into production.

Transitioning your fashion tech pack into a functioning prototype is made possible with a good tech pack. Using a cloud-based PLM software like Backbone will make tech pack creation a lot faster and more efficient, but traditional tools like Adobe Illustrator or Microsoft Excel can also be used if your brand isn’t ready or doesn’t have a better system in place. There is nothing wrong with taking this approach when building tech packs; it might just require some additional lift from your team.

In our blog, we discuss the pros and cons of Illustrator and Excel, and provide a helpful breakdown of the manual tech pack creation process, including technical sketches, BOMs, graded specs, colorways, and more. As a bonus, you can even download some Adobe Illustrator and Excel templates we’ve created to help you get started!

In this blog, we discuss various topics, including:

• Why factory communication is important
• How fashion tech packs improve factory communication
• How to find the right factory
• How to contact factories
• How to work with factories
• Factory expectations and communication

How PLM Tech Pack Creation Saves Time and Money

With Backbone’s dynamic tech pack creation, designers will save time and money during product development.

In the fashion and apparel world, designers may spend hours conceptualizing product sketches and mood boards as part of their creative visualization. However, when the time comes to translate those visuals into physical samples, suppliers and manufacturers require more than a few creative briefs to usher new garments into production.

Transitioning your fashion tech pack into a functioning prototype is made possible with a good tech pack. Using a cloud-based PLM software like Backbone will make tech pack creation a lot faster and more efficient, but traditional tools like Adobe Illustrator or Microsoft Excel can also be used if your brand isn’t ready or doesn’t have a better system in place. There is nothing wrong with taking this approach when building tech packs; it might just require some additional lift from your team.

In our blog, we discuss the pros and cons of Illustrator and Excel, and provide a helpful breakdown of the manual tech pack creation process, including technical sketches, BOMs, graded specs, colorways, and more. As a bonus, you can even download some Adobe Illustrator and Excel templates we’ve created to help you get started!

Learn how tech packs save time and money, along with:

• Why fashion tech packs are important
• How fashion tech packs help brands make decisions
• How fashion tech packs lower sampling costs